European Union

Link

Belgium Drops Huawei in Favor of Nokia 5G Contracts

Andrew Orr ·

Amid U.S. pressure to exclude Chinese company Huawei from 5G infrastructure, Belgium is moving forward to work with Nokia.

The Belgian capital Brussels is home to the NATO alliance and the European Union’s executive and parliament, making it a matter of particular concern for U. S. intelligence agencies.

“Belgium has been 100% reliant on Chinese vendors for its radio networks – and people working at NATO and the EU were making mobile phone calls on these networks,” said John Strand, an independent Danish telecoms consultant.

“The operators are sending a signal that it’s important to have access to safe networks.”

Link

GDPR Hasn’t Been as Aggressive as Critics Would Like

Andrew Orr ·

Two years later, Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation has struggled with a lack of enforcement, not enough funding, limited staff resources, and stalling tactics by tech companies.

Privacy groups and smaller tech companies complain that companies like Facebook and Google are avoiding tough oversight. At the same time, the public’s experience with the G.D.P.R. has been a frustrating number of pop-up consent windows to click through when visiting a website.

I expected a lot more out of it as well. Sounds like the government needs to take it more seriously.

Link

EU Wants a Single Data Market to Challenge Big Tech

Andrew Orr ·

The European Union introduced a way to challenge the likes of Big Tech by creating a single market for data.

Measures to achieve that goal include an array of new rules covering cross-border data use, data interoperability and standards related to manufacturing, climate change, the auto industry, healthcare, financial services, agriculture and energy.

Other rules in the coming months will open up more public data on geospatial, the environment, meteorology, statistics and companies’ data across the bloc for companies to use for free.

Link

Is Europe Going Too Far With Tech Regulation?

Andrew Orr ·

Don’t answer that, because the answer is already no. Adam Satariano feels that maybe Europe is going too far when it comes to tech regulation.

Europe has clamped down on violent content, hate speech and misinformation online through a thicket of new laws and regulations over the past five years. Now there are questions about whether the region is going too far, with the rules leading to accusations of censorship and potentially providing cover to some governments to stifle dissent.

The New York Times: Why does Apple control its competitors?? Also The New York Times: Is Europe going too far?? I know that these articles were written by different people, but I still did a double take so hard that now I have whiplash.

Link

Do Not Track Setting Could Return With a Vengeance

Andrew Orr ·

Apple plans to remove the Do Not Track setting from iOS and macOS because it doesn’t actually do anything. Websites only have to voluntarily obey it, which means that the majority don’t. But a stronger DNT could be coming.

In January 2017 the European Commission announced an initiative to update the ePrivacy Regulation, a proposal that would revisit a 15-year-old directive dealing with privacy protections and how users consent to being tracked by cookies.